One team is 16th in the Premier League after an embarrassing season. The other is 17th after an embarrassing season.
Next week they face each other, Manchester United against Tottenham Hotspur, in the Europa League final in Bilbao.
Remarkably, it means Champions League football is on the table for whoever wins.
But who needs it most? How bad have their seasons been? And do either of them have a route to turning things around?
Our Manchester United writer Carl Anka and his Tottenham counterpart Jay Harris got together to discuss…
Carl: Mr Harris, my friend. I hope you’re doing well, and congratulations on nearly reaching the end of another season.
Let’s address the £100million elephant in the room. How badly do Tottenham Hotspur need to win the Europa League final?
Jay: I’m not sure how we have managed to navigate such a strange season, Carl. If Spurs win the final, and lift silverware for the first time since 2008, everybody is going to forget about how awful they have been in the Premier League. If they lose, then Ange Postecoglou’s position is untenable and this goes down as their worst season for decades. They have lost more than half of their top-flight games, including home defeats by relegated pair Ipswich Town and Leicester City.
Is it fair to say there is less pressure on Ruben Amorim to win this game because he only joined United mid-way through the season?
Carl: There is always pressure to deliver silverware at United, but Amorim’s seven months as head coach have been strange. There has been no new-manager bounce, but instead a series of very honest press conferences about how long the United rebuild could take. There’s only so many times a coach can talk about the need for suffering before fans wonder if the pain will be worth it in the end.
Amorim has made it clear that the club cannot continue performing this way. Winning the Europa League will help remove the sour taste of the season so the ‘project’ can begin properly.
Standing from the outside looking in, it looks like Postecoglou – and Spurs as a whole — have gone through a similar situation to United in 2023-24:
A manager in their second season, hoping to build on the success of what went before.
A tactical approach that demands a lot of hard running and focus on transitional moments.
A widespread injury crisis, including numerous muscular issues, which might be linked to the aforementioned hard running.
Performances drop off a cliff due to the manager persisting with his tactical Plan A despite missing several players who are essential to make it work.
Hope that the team will improve when players return from injury.
Dread when the team doesn’t improve when those players understandably lack the match sharpness to turn things around.
But there’s a cup run keeping everyone’s hopes up.
Jay: Does this mean I could have copied your articles from last season if I switched the names around? You are completely right, of course. Postecoglou’s training sessions and playing style are known for their intensity. Adhering to this system twice a week has taken its toll on the entire squad.
The only player in the starting XI who has avoided injury has been Pedro Porro. Dejan Kulusevski featured in all 42 of Tottenham’s games this season until he picked up a foot injury in March. Fatigue had worn him down and now he will miss the final following knee surgery.
To give Postecoglou some credit, he has tweaked his approach in the knockout stages of the Europa League. Spurs have had far less possession and scored from a set piece and on the counter in their semi-final second-leg victory over Bodo/Glimt. But why was he so reluctant to switch things up in the league?
Carl: There was a lot of speculation about Erik ten Hag’s job security in the lead-up to last season’s FA Cup final, only for the mood to shift after winning some silverware. Is Postecoglou in a similar situation?
Jay: The Athletic has reported that Postecoglou’s long-term future is in serious doubt even if he wins the Europa League. The Australian alluded to this following their quarter-final win over Eintracht Frankfurt when he told the journalists in the room: “Unfortunately for a lot of you, you‘re going to have to put up with me for a little bit longer.”
Postecoglou’s become grumpy over the last few months and it almost feels like he knows what is coming. Winning the FA Cup final temporarily saved Ten Hag. What can Spurs learn from how Man Utd handled that situation?
Carl: In March, Sir Jim Ratcliffe conducted a series of interviews in which he called extending Ten Hag’s contract a “mistake”. “With Erik, there was an emotional response,” said the INEOS CEO. “We get criticised for being unemotional and there was a bit of emotion with that.”
It cost United £21.4m ($28.5m) to dismiss Ten Hag and then hire Amorim. These are the sort of costly errors a football club only want to make once. Let’s borrow a line from one of the greatest films ever made: “Move calmly, move cautiously, and you’ll never be sorry.”
Speaking of club owners, there have been multiple fan protests before Spurs games this season, and #EnicOut seems to be one of the prevailing messages. How do you best explain these sentiments to the uninitiated?
Jay: Over the summer, Tottenham’s stadium will host a range of musical artists on tour, including Beyonce, Chris Brown, Imagine Dragons and Kendrick Lamar with SZA. There is a feeling within the fanbase that Tottenham’s board focus too much on generating money through commercial activities and do not reinvest enough of that into the first-team squad.
The decision to “remaster their brand identity” in November, which basically means they tweaked their badge, went down poorly. There is a huge disconnect between the fans and the board.
How have United supporters reacted to the first full season under Ratcliffe?
Carl: The honeymoon period is well and truly over for INEOS. Ratcliffe has made a series of unpopular decisions this season.
He’s done away with concession prices on ticket, leading to Old Trafford crowds to chant “Sixty six quid, you’re taking the piss”. He’s sanctioned two round mass redundancies within the workforce and scrapped Christmas benefits and cut staff lunches around Carrington training ground. He’s brought a stop to payments to club legends, including Sir Alex Ferguson.
In amongst all of this is a football team that is underperforming, and a proposed new stadium design that has been compared to Butlin’s Minehead. Ratcliffe describes these decisions as difficult but necessary. United fans are wondering when things will improve.
Daniel Levy has been the chairman of Tottenham Hotspur since March 2001. Can you envisage a situation where that changes any time soon?
Jay: In April 2024, Levy released a statement to coincide with Tottenham’s annual accounts that said, “To capitalise on our long-term potential, to continue to invest in the teams and undertake future capital projects, the club requires a significant increase in its equity base.”
There have been a lot of whispers and rumours about where this prospective investment could come from but nothing concrete has emerged yet. For now, Levy’s grip on the club is tight and he is involved in all of the major decisions, including the future of Postecoglou.
Last month, Spurs announced that Vinai Venkatesham, who used to work for Arsenal, will join as their new chief executive in the summer. It will be interesting to see how he operates with Levy and if he takes on any of his responsibilities.
Carl: Manchester United have just asked fans to vote for player of the season. Who is likely to win awards at Tottenham?
Jay: Up until January there was no question that Kulusevski was their best player, but fatigue and injury have weakened his powers. Djed Spence had an excellent couple of months but Destiny Udogie has been restored to first-choice left-back. Dominic Solanke works exceptionally hard but 15 goals in 42 appearances is not an amazing return from their club-record £65m striker.
My vote would go to Lucas Bergvall. He started the season slowly after joining from Swedish side Djurgarden, but the 19-year-old midfielder has been a delight to watch in the second half of the campaign.
Is it safe to say that Bruno Fernandes walks away with United’s award?
Carl: That’s a no-brainer. He’s always been good for United, but this season has seen a shift in his approach. After finding it difficult to pass and receive the ball under pressure in deeper areas, everything clicked for him during a 2-2 draw with Liverpool. It’s genuinely unlocked another level to his game. They need to dedicate a plaque to him within the new stadium when it is finished.
Which areas are Spurs likely to want to strengthen this summer?
Jay: They have a big decision to make in central midfield. Yves Bissouma and Rodrigo Bentancur both only have one year left on their contracts. They are not natural defensive midfielders while Archie Gray has had limited exposure to the role this season. They need a specialist holding midfielder while Gray continues his development.
Brennan Johnson is Tottenham’s top scorer this season but he fades out of games a lot. Not too many Spurs fans would complain if they upgraded him at right wing while they need a backup striker to Solanke. Richarlison has struggled with his fitness for the last two years and it might be best for everyone if there were a clean break in the summer.
What do United need for Amorim’s system to flourish?
Carl: He needs runners. Amorim believes United go from soft-bellied prey in the Premier League to hard-running predators in the Europa League. The team needs reinforcements up front, at wing-back, in central midfield… everywhere really. But any incoming player needs to be a top-level athlete. Shin kickers and road runners form the foundation of his 3-4-3. Two-footed technicians make for a layer on top of that.
Spurs are 17th. United are 16th. Do you think this final will be an entertaining viewing experience? Or akin to two drunken men squabbling for the last minicab home?
Jay: Spurs have beaten United three times this season and they have all been different games. The 3-0 victory at Old Trafford was controlled and one of their best performances, yet with key personnel missing, it’s difficult to see them replicating that. February’s encounter was tighter and decided by James Maddison’s early goal.
What the neutrals want to see, which you have alluded to, is a repeat of December’s chaotic Carabao Cup quarter-final. Spurs were leading 3-0 before a couple of awful mistakes from Fraser Forster gave United hope. Son Heung-min then scored directly from a corner but there was still enough time for Jonny Evans to make Spurs fans nervous with a stoppage-time strike.
Cup finals tend to be cagey affairs but these teams have been so unpredictable this season that I would not be surprised if the game resembled two boxers in the 12th round of a fight, battered, bruised and out of breath, aimlessly swinging punches in the hope of a knockout blow.
Carl: Our brilliant co-worker Anantaajith Raghuraman has written this piece on what those three matches can teach us. I suspect this may be a mudfight. Twenty minutes trying to figure each other out. Twenty minutes of arm wrestling for supremacy, and then the rest is the rest.
What’s your biggest hope for Spurs in 2025-26?
Jay: They avoid another injury crisis and, buoyed by winning the Europa League final, impress on their return to the Champions League.
Carl: I’d quite like United to have a decent season of steady growth and a nice run in the Champions League knockout stages.
Unfortunately, one of us will have our hopes dashed next week. Good luck… but not too much.
(Top photos: Getty Images)